1. Field of the invention
Present invention relates to an apparatus for calculating the repair cost of a car that has been damaged in an accident and more particularly, to such an apparatus which enables calculation of repair cost and formation of, for example an estimate and sales slip to be easily carried out.
2. Description of the related art
In repairing a damaged car, an accurate estimate is first required. It takes many hours to estimate repair work costs including technician fees and the price of replacement parts. Indeed, the estimate of repair cost is conventionally carried out by an expert.
The conventional methods of estimating a repair cost suffer the following drawbacks.
(1) Generally, it takes 30 minutes to estimate a repair cost equivalent to 100,000 yen. Further when a repair cost of several hundred thousand yen is estimated, many items and parts are often overlooked (so called estimate omission). Therefore, it is said that an accurate estimate is almost impossible.
(2) Even if an estimating manual is used, containing information regarding work items, parts and so on, it is very difficult to retrieve and pick up several tens or sometimes over a hundred different work items and parts, and estimate omission often occurs.
(3) Estimators under a heavy work burden, when faced with a greatly damaged car are usually forced to work overtime hours or night hours to carry out the estimate.
(4) There is a shortage of expert estimators available for hire.
(5) In the case where estimates are not accurate, stable management can not be expected.